Old Fart Brigade

Only old farts over 40! Must be getting grumpy and unable to comprehend pants that look like you took a crap in them because they hang down so low. If you are a young peckerwood or whoopersnapper, NO ENTRY!

Well, it happened. I got the cell phone for Christmas.
I had to get my 10 year old granddaughter show me how to turn it on.

I noticed the other day that I had a "message" on it. The wife tried to show me how to retrieve the message but it turns out my daughter had put in a password. I didn't know the password so I had to call my daughter who set up the phone for me to tell me the password. Wife put in the password and retrieved the message which was already three days old. Turns out it was my friend Gary, wanting me to help him haul some stuff on my lowboy.

Thats one of the reasons I didn't want the thing in the first place, sometimes you just don't want to be found.

The kids laughed at me when I decided to use a ringtone for my calls instead of a song. I would just feel kind of odd if my phone started belting out " I wanna sing you a love song" while sitting in the barbers chair.

I have discovered one good use for it though. The wife wears Wal-Mart camouflage when we go to Wallyworld, and I can't find her when I'm ready to leave. Now I just flip open the cell phone and call her. She can run but she can't hide anymore.

The jury is still out though, to see if the good can outweigh the bad.
I still refuse to answer it when it rings while I am driving. I see some of the ladies driving the car, drinking coffee/latte, fixing their makeup and talking on the cell phone.
I never mastered the art of multi-tasking. How do they dial the thing while they are driving?

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill...barefoot... BOTH ways, blah, blah, blah.

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of over thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!! There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3' s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ usually taled over the beginning and f'd it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like call waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen, forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either, you could only get cartoons on Saturday morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or before !

Kids are giving subtle hints that I might be recieving a cell phone for Christmas.
I keep telling them that I have survived nearly seventy years without one and really don't need one.
Cell phones...people dialing them and talking on them while driving and not paying attention to what's going on around them, yakking on them in restaurants.
Yeah..like I'm interested in hearing about your doctors appointment while eating my meal.
Pet peeve...phone ringing during the consecration of the host during mass.
Idiots. Turn the dahm thing off when you enter the church. Just keep the phone kids, wait and call me when I get home. Anyway..your wasting your time. I'm broke, my SS check hasn't arrived yet. Does this make me a grumpy old fart?
Just kidding about the kids calling for money.
I may have to reconsider now though..has anyone here looked around for a pay phone lately?

Since you put it that way, I think I'll just sit back and waiting to see if interest comes from one of the ladies. I can see where an innocuous friendly gesture like that could hurt feelings. That wouldn't be cool. Thanks for the words DB...lol.

LOL! That's great, Showtime! I can see the OFB meeting for coffee one day and giving each other the official hand sign. I'm sure we'll get some strange looks from bystanders, but that just makes it all the more worthwhile.